Purpose
by Princess Pajamas
Summary: Eponine had always thought that her only purpose in this life was to suffer. On a cold autumn night in 1831, she met a stranger who would change her life, and her purpose, forever. UPDATE: A dandy investigates. Strong sexual themes.
1. Eponine Called

**Purpose**

**Author's Note:** This is an expanded version of "Every Night, I Saved Him", a summary story about Eponine becoming a Vampire Slayer. This story contains vampires and other unlikely elements. You have been warned.

Big ups to LesMisLoony for her thoughtful criticism. Thanks for keeping me honest about my historical/book-related stuff!

Vampire Slayer mythology and some language pertaining to it is the property of Joss Whedon; used without permission.

* * *

**Chapter 1 - Eponine Called**

"Why yes, Monsieur, you may have this dance," said Eponine, extending a grimy hand to the chill night air. She produced a series of harsh barks that were intended to be girlish laughter, the way she imagined fine ladies in beautiful dresses laughed when confronted with handsome cavaliers at lavish balls. For that is where she imagined herself: dancing with a handsome young gentleman at a ball. As she executed a few wobbling dance steps, she thought how nice it was to be in this place of warmth and light. Her surroundings and everyone in them were beautiful, and none more so than this fine gentleman in front of her. Surely, he would be kind to her. After their dance was finished, he would want to invite her to sit next to him at the great feast, and there they would fill their bellies with rich food as they talked and fell in love.

Ah, but that last thought was too much, and Eponine stopped dancing as her fantasy disintegrated at the seams and was gone. It had not been the thought of love, but rather the thought of a full belly that had taken her out of her imagination. It had awakened the hunger in the shriveled stone which had once been her stomach. Mostly, she had learned to ignore the useless pangs from her midsection, but there were times (like now) where the awareness of its emptiness produced something like a hard pinch in her middle, and then it became too strong to ignore. She paused at the mouth of an alley and, leaning against a lamppost for strength, tried to will the feeling away.

As the last of her dream-image faded, Eponine again became aware of her surroundings. She had been walking through the dark Parisian streets, having delivered the last of her father's letters hours ago but not wishing to go home yet, because she never knew what beatings or other humiliations would await her there. The hour was late, and she realized with a small start that she had wondered close to the seedy building in which her family shared a room. She was not within sight of it yet, but it was only a few streets away; she would have to be careful not to be seen. Just lately, her father had taken up with a bunch street thugs of the sort that one tried never to run into after dark, if it could be helped.

Had it not been a letter-day, she need only have worried about running into Montparnasse, who was always sniffing around her like a hungry dog, but since her father had sent her out with high hopes (and a kick in the arse) that morning, it was highly possible that he would have them out looking for her. There might still be hope for her if she returned on her own, but if one of them found her and brought her back, she could only guess at what she might have to endure.

She had just made up her mind to go when a voice from the alley stopped her. "Ah! There she is!"

Eponine tensed, knowing that if she had been spotted, she could not hope to outrun any of her father's "friends". She trained her eyes on the alley and waited to see which of them it would be. Perhaps she could make a deal with him, convince him she had just been on her way home and persuade him to let her go her way alone.

The man who emerged from the shadows was not, however, a member of Patron Minette. Seeing this, Eponine relaxed a little -- but only a little. She had known what a man has and where he wants to put it for ages now, and she knew that many men were willing to resort to force to get what they wanted. And even if he didn't want her for _that_, one never knew what sort of people might be met in the street at this hour. She regarded the man warily, tensing her legs to run at the first sign of trouble.

He was old, with a generous amount of white sprinkled in his dark brown hair and beard. Despite his apparent age, he walked upright without the aid of a cane. His large gray eyes were gentle but slightly wild, and he wore a large wooden crucifix around his neck. He approached but stopped a polite distance away, looking at Eponine speculatively.

Feeling the weight of his gaze on her (and not liking it), Eponine drew herself to her full height, trying to radiate strength and dignity. These things were usually beyond her, as thin and wretched as she had become, but she came close to projecting them now, closer than she ever would have believed. When she spoke, her rough, broken voice quavered with a slight edge of the fear she had hoped to hide. "Well, what is it, old man? Staring costs a sou, so it does."

His answer surprised her. "Forgive me," he said, his voice calm and kind. "I did not mean to stare. It's just that I've been looking for you. I have been sent to find you."

A bitter scowl twisted Eponine's lips. "By who? My father?"

He blinked, perhaps surprised by the venom with which she had injected that word usually spoken with love, _father_.

"No, child. Not by your father." He paused, seeming to consider his next words. Finally, he said, "Who sent me is not important now. For now, I must prepare you for things to come. You must be ready to fight them."

"Fight? Monsieur, there are days when I can barely _stand._ Fight who?"

"The vampires."

Eponine did not know whether to laugh or be insulted. Vampires! _Drunk_, she thought to herself. _Surely, he must be drunk as a lord, to be talking such nonsense and to look as serious as he does_. She thought that he must be making sport of her; grown people did not believe in vampires.

Her anger began to grow as she thought, _he thinks me a child, and he means to amuse himself by scaring me with this silliness._ If so, he would not succeed; she had only lived 16 years, but many of those had been hard, cruel, unforgiving. In the last half of her life, she had seen things that would make the monsters he spoke of seem as benign as children's playthings. She opened her mouth, an angry retort on the tip of her tongue, but then she looked at his face, at the gentleness there, and shut it again.

Instead, she said, "And why would _I_ need to fight these creatures, Monsieur? I'm just a girl, and not a very healthy one at that."

"That," he replied, relief written large on his face, "Is one of the things I've come to explain. You see, my dear, you're very special."

A frustrated sound -- half exasperated sigh, half outraged cry -- escaped her lips in a small explosion of air. Turning her back on him, she gathered her shawl (really little more than holes held together by strings) around her scrawny shoulders. She addressed him over her shoulder, in a tone which she hoped sounded haughty but which managed to sound no more than weary. "Monsieur, I believe you must think me both stupid and easily led. I am neither. Excuse me." And with that, she began to walk in the direction of the Gorbeau building.

She had not gone far, however, when he called after her, "You have work to do, Eponine!"

She froze, bony frame squared. Then she whirled back to face him, brown hair flying about her face and shoulders in a tangled, filthy curtain. Her mouth was dropped in shock. "Eponine!" she cried when she could once again form words. "How do y'know my name's Eponine?"

He came closer, and took her by one bony elbow. Eponine, still stupefied at having heard her name come from this stranger's lips, barely noticed. "I was given your name by the people who sent me to find you," he explained, speaking slowly and carefully, as if to a child. "There are a great many of us, and we exist to find and prepare girls like you."

Eponine shook her head, coming back to herself a bit. She looked at him, an expression made from equal parts bewilderment and indignation on her face. After all, she'd heard the phrase "girls like you," before, and she'd never known it to mean anything nice. And yet, this man seemed to almost revere her, as if his earlier remark about her being special were true and not just something men said to get girls to lie on their backs for them.

"What do you mean by that?"

He let go of her elbow and placed both his hands on her shoulders instead. The gesture was almost… paternal, and Eponine felt herself comforted in spite of the surroundings and the odd circumstances.

What he said was, "As long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. One girl in all the world, a chosen one. One with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, to contain their numbers and stop the spread of their evil.

"That," he finished, leaning over her and looking into her eyes, "Would be you."

Eponine looked up at him, her eyes round, her expression skeptical and believing all at once. "But how?" she asked, not really sure if she was speaking to him or to herself. "How can that be?"

"When one Slayer dies, the next one is called," he explained. He took his hands off her shoulders (Eponine felt a little sorry at this, although torture would not have dragged the admission out of her) and twisted them nervously. "You, my dear Eponine, have been called."

"Oh," she said. She still couldn't quite believe he was telling the truth, but she didn't dare quite believe it was a lie, either. Then, as the full weight of what he had just said struck her, what her being called must mean, "Oh!" she exclaimed. She noted his nervousness and fixed him with a look. "Do these Slayers die often, then?"

He met her gaze, not without some difficulty. "Yes," he admitted, his voice low. "The calling is a dangerous one. I will prepare you as best I can, but you must remember that, from now on, your life is always in danger."

The sadness with which he said this pierced Eponine's heart in a way she could scarcely credit. She thought of telling him that this last mattered not at all to her; by and large, her life was something she merely endured. She had thought often of killing herself, but she had always been stopped by some gnawing, undefined notion that she should not, for reasons she could not identify. She thought now that this might be the reason, and the thought filled her with an excited warmth that she thought had left her forever a long time ago. _Hope._

Grinning, she took his arm in her own. "Well then, that's fine. I was going to die anyway; might as well do some good before then. So, what's next?"

For the first time, a small smile appeared on the man's lips. "For now, you go home to your family. Stay off the streets at night, or at least be as careful as you can. Soon, you'll start to notice some changes. You'll feel different. Once that happens, do not tell anyone. Come and find me. My name is Sims, and I'm staying at number 25 Rue Notre Dame."

She was about to ask another question, when a dark figure appeared a few blocks away. "'Ponine!" this figure hissed. He began to approach, and Eponine felt fear and loathing in her gut. Montparnasse.

Moving quickly, Sims fumbled in his pocket and handed Eponine twenty sous. When he spoke, he was careful to keep his voice low so the approaching figure would not hear. "Remember, Eponine -- number 25 Rue Notre Dame. Don't speak of this to anyone. And above all, be careful, child!"

Eponine looked wonderingly at the coins in her hand, feeling absurdly touched as Sims hurried away. Then Montparnasse had caught up with her, a hungry, cruel leer on his face. "Where've you been, you little baggage?"

With a sigh, she showed him the coins in her hand. "Where do you think? Collecting money, just like Papa told me to. That gentleman just gave me twenty sous."

"For what?" asked Montparnasse. He slipped a lecherous arm around her waist and led her towards her parents' hovel. "Are you selling it these days?"

Her not-inconsiderable temper spiked, and she stifled the urge to hit him. Experience had shown her that she would not win a slapping fight with Montparnasse. _But perhaps soon that won't be the case,_ she couldn't help but think. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep the smile away, but the thought wouldn't go as easily. "No, 'Parnasse. He's just a kindly old man with a good heart. That's all."

She let him lead her home; she would let him touch her breasts (what meager breasts she had, anyway) once they got there, and that would keep him from telling her father what he had seen. She would keep silent about the things she had learned tonight. But she would watch. She would await the changes.

_Number 25 Rue Notre Dame,_ she thought. And then, on the heels of that: _Yes, 'Parnasse, perhaps one day soon, that won't be the case _at all.

The smile was harder to keep away this time, and she didn't try. Smiling, she let him lead her into the night.


	2. The Changes Begin

**Purpose**

**Chapter 2 - The Changes Begin**

Her first thought upon waking was, _Red. The light is red._

She did not know she was awake, did not know that the red light was merely the sun shining on her closed eyelids, and she was content to lie there, somewhere between consciousness and the darkness that had come before it, marveling at the red light in a distracted, dazed way.

After a while of this, she came to realize that she was waking up, and she tried to swim back to the comforting darkness. Her efforts were in vain, though; consciousness was coming back faster now, and her memories of the night before with it.

Once she and Montparnasse had reached the street in front of the Gorbeau tenement, she had given herself over to his rough, greedy hands as she had planned, but for the first time, he had not been content merely to paw at her chest. He had grabbed her around the waist, tried to reach between her legs through a particularly large hole in her petticoat, and had belted her across the face when she had pushed him away with a frightened, anguished cry.

"Stupid whore," he had growled, grabbing her with savage force just above the elbow. She cried out at the bone-crushing pressure he was exerting, which only made him bear down harder.

He had dragged her, scratching and kicking, up to her parents' filthy room and left her to her father's punishment. It had been every bit as horrible as she had feared, and more. At one point, he hit her with such force that she spun and tripped over her own feet. She had been unable to get her arms out in time to cushion her fall, and had hit the hard wooden floor face-first, taking the brunt of the impact with her chin. For an instant she had been terrified that she had broken off one of her front teeth, but a quick inspection with her tongue had revealed that the tooth was still intact. She had, however, bitten through the scant meat of her upper lip, drawing blood.

It had been the worst hiding of her life, and as she lay on her pallet the next morning, she found that she was in no hurry to come fully awake and begin to deal with the fantastic pain she undoubtedly would be living with for days. She rejected consciousness, and all that came with it – besides the physical pain, there was the humiliation she felt at having been beaten _again_, the horror that her encounter with Montparnasse had left in her (he had always frightened her, and last night he had raised the stakes in a terrifying game, one that she already hated and had been forced into quite against her will), the soul-crushing misery of another day without bread, another day without warmth, just another day.

"Get up, you lazy bitch," muttered a rough female voice. The voice was very close to her right ear, and Eponine snapped back to full consciousness as the voice's owner -- her mother -- tumbled her roughly off of her pallet and onto the floor. "I'll not have you sleeping the day away like some pampered bourgeoisie bint."

For a moment, Eponine could only lie on the floor, stunned and waiting for the pain from last night's many injuries to come crashing in on her. Long seconds passed, but the pain didn't come. She sat up, dazed, not understanding -- why didn't she hurt? After the beating, she had been half the night getting to sleep, even the slightest movement had brought a flare of pain from her scrapes and bruises, so _why didn't she hurt?_

The Thenardiess was looking at her eldest daughter in an odd, speculative way, so Eponine made a hasty excuse and fled the room. She ran down the halls and stairways of the Gorbeau building, flew out the door and down the street, gaining speed as she went, bare feet pounding on the cobblestones, a mad exhilaration propelling her legs and blocking all thought. She finally collapsed on a low parapet near the Seine, the breath tearing in and out of her lungs in harsh gasps that were ice on the way down and fire on the way back up.

When her sense had returned a little, she ran her hands wonderingly over her arms and legs. She felt the place where she had punctured her lip. She was miraculously whole; not a trace of last night's savage beating remained. She sat, dumbfounded, trying to rationalize this bizarre (yet welcomed, _wonderful_) turn of events.

She did not know how long she sat there, cupping her razor-thin elbows in her hands and shivering in the sweat from her crazy dash through the city, before a sound jerked her out of her reverie. For a moment her wild eyes swept the area around her, like those of a hunted animal with its wind up. Then she relaxed as she realized what had shaken her from her daze. It was just church-bells, probably from Notre Dame, marking the hour and calling the faithful to mass.

_Notre Dame,_ she thought. _25 Rue Notre Dame_. As if the thought were a key to the floodgates of her confused mind, the memories of the night before -- the ones from _before_ she had been discovered by Montparnasse in the street -- came flooding back in. Sims. The vampires. _The changes._

Were these the changes, then? Was this what she was to look for? She was not a stupid girl, and she reasoned that it must be so. Ordinary people didn't heal without a scratch overnight, after all. Was this the only change? Sims had said she would feel different, and while feeling marvelously unhurt certainly _was_ different, she didn't think that was what he had meant, at least not entirely.

Eponine fought to control the chaotic roar of her thoughts. She closed her eyes and focused on the darkness behind her lids, breathing in slow, measured lungfuls of air. Slowly, she replaced chaos with stillness, and as she did, she realized that she _did_ feel different. Her body, usually weak and listless, felt suffused with energy. Though she had run a great distance to get to this spot, she felt fresh and rested, ready to run clear across the city, if that was what was required. The muscles of her arms and legs and torso seemed to be vibrating, a slow and steady thrumming that jangled in her nerve endings. Her mind, which could sometimes be muddled, felt sharp and clear.

A slow, thoughtful grin spread on Eponine's face. It was true. The things Sims had told her last night, the ideas that had filled her with such strong hope, they were _true_. She had been called, she had a purpose, and as she got slowly to her feet, feeling her muscles thrum with their new life and potential, she found that she could not wait another moment to begin.

Turning in the direction of the Rue Notre Dame, she took off running once again. Ten minutes later, she was knocking frantically on the door to the small house where Sims was staying. He opened the door, and they stared at each other through the cool autumn gloom. After a moment of this, "It's started," was all she said.


	3. An Offer Refused

**Purpose**

**Chapter 3 - An Offer Refused**

For a moment Sims could only stare at the slight figure on the step, transfixed. A strong wind has risen, and her hair and rags blew wildly around her, giving her the appearance of girl prophet or oracle, rather than the impoverished scrap of a woman-child he remembered from the previous evening.

Then the wind subsided and she was just a girl again, dirty and shivering and looking at him with a heart-breaking mixture of fear and hope.

With a slight shudder, Sims shook off this uncharacteristic vapor and ushered the girl inside. "Come, child," he said, shutting the door firmly against the rising wind. "We have much to discuss."

Eponine, for her part, felt a relief so strong that she felt close to swooning. For a moment she had been certain that the old man remembered her not at all, that the whole state of affairs may have just been a fevered dream brought on my hunger and desperation, a dream so vivid that she had mistaken it for reality. It was only after he invited her inside that she came to realize how important this thing, this purpose, had become to her in just a short time. She stepped over the threshold, let out a breath she had not known she was holding, and followed Sims down the hall to the house's small sitting room.

As Sims went to put another log on the fire (the knife-edge of the wind had robbed the day of any marginal warmth it had first held), Eponine looked around the room with undisguised wonder. It was not the room's sparse furnishings and bachelor's décor that held her attention, but the weapons. They seemed to be everywhere -- hanging from hooks on the walls, cluttering the tables, poking out from under the sofa. And so many kinds! Some were recognizable (the gleaming double-headed axe, while unlike any she had ever seen, was at least identifiably an axe), but most bore no resemblance to anything in her experience. The sheer number of them frightened her a little; they were mute testimony to the fact that this was serious business, indeed.

Sims finished with the fire, and Eponine turned her awed gaze on him. "Monsieur, you are well-armed," she said. Her voice was not quite steady; her initial fright was starting to build towards something like panic. "In fact, it appears you could equip an army and still not want for protection."

"Indeed," he agreed. There were two worn wing-backed chairs drawn close to the fireplace. Sims sat in one and motioned for Eponine to sit in the other. She did as he bade, perching anxiously on the edge of the chair's ragged seat, facing him. "When one faces the forces of darkness, it is best to be prepared."

"But why do you need so _many_?"

"I don't," he replied, regarding her across the fire-lit expanse between them. "These belong to you."

"To me," she echoed dully. She twisted in her seat, again surveying the room's vast armory.

When she turned back to him, her face was carefully set, like that of a person about to commence with a task that is distasteful but cannot be avoided. When she spoke, her voice was measured and slow, the voice of someone who is forced to explain the obvious.

"Monsieur, I live in one small room with my parents and younger sister. When we are all in, there is barely room to pace for more than a few steps before we trip over one another. Even if there was room, I shouldn't like to put such things within reach of my sister, who is clumsy, and my father, who is dangerous. Where am I to keep them?"

He blinked, a look of mild surprise on his weathered face. "Why, here, of course. After all, you will train here and live here; why would you not keep your weapons here?"

At the words, "Live here," Eponine's brows shot up nearly to her hairline. For a moment she simply stared into the fire, slack-jawed and unmoving, trying to sort through the emotional avalanche his words had caused in her.

She knew she should feel glad at the prospect of leaving behind the detestable Gorbeau building, and part of her did, but another part of her -- a surprisingly _strong_ part -- felt more than a little appalled at the idea. True, she despised her father and the men he associated with, and she lived in constant terror that violence could descend on her at any moment while she was at home, but she still cared for Azelma and (a very little bit) for her mother, and she was not certain that she could abandon them to that life, especially knowing that she now had some capacity to protect them.

Also, she didn't believe her father, who relied on her to carry his letters and inspire pity in their recipients with her pathetic countenance, would let her go so easily. While she felt reasonably certain that he could no longer posed a physical threat to her, there were other ways he could inflict pain. She knew it, and he knew it, too.

She looked across at Sims, at the naked expanse of his old man's throat and thought, _Yes, he'll know the way to hurt me, or he'll learn. He'll wound me without ever laying a hand on me._

Out loud, she cleared her throat and simply said, "I thank you for the offer, Monsieur, but I can't accept."

He leaned across to her and took one of her hands, patting it soothingly. The gesture was comforting beyond measure, but still she wished he would stop. He wasn't making this any easier. His voice, so full of kindness and warmth, brought tears to her eyes, the first in years. "My dear, you have been given a great gift, and strength beyond your wildest imagining. There is no man you need fear."

Blinking savagely hard, she forced the tears back and faced him with an expression of weary determination. "I can't. Please understand. There could be… there could be consequences."

He nodded almost imperceptibly, and then gave her hand a final reassuring squeeze before dropping it and getting to his feet. "Well now," he said, his business-like manner a startling contrast to his tone of just moments ago, "Shall we begin? There is much to do, and sunset comes apace."

Without waiting for a reply, he gathered several pieces of weaponry and started down-cellar. Eponine watched him in silence, her earlier enthusiasm now tempered by the ache of being pulled in two directions, towards duty and towards desire. Sighing, she shook the feeling off and followed Sims down the stairs.

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks so much to the folks who've left reviews so far. Anyone else reading? Please let me know what you think... all constuctive criticism welcomed! I'm less sure of this chapter that I was of the others; I wasn't sure, after I had written it, that I'd earned the moment where Eponine fears for Sims's life yet, or if I need more character development before that seems believable. Does it feel natural to you, or is too rushed?

Thanks for reading!


	4. In the Graveyard

**Purpose**

Chapter 4 – In the Graveyard

Eponine ducked the monster's blow, and thought about the Lark.

She had not thought of her childhood in years – reflecting on that happy time now, in her misery, was both painful and pointless. But just lately, her thoughts had been turning more and more often to the wan little thing that had served as her parent's scullery maid at Montfermeil.

The Lark had moved through the inn like a shadow, a ghost, always making herself as small as possible and moving as quickly as she could, as if stopping for even a moment might make her a target. Eponine, content in her superior position, had scarcely paid the little moppet any attention at all, except to exercise the petty authorities of the childhood pecking order. As such, she never gave the miserable little thing any thought after she had gone… not until much later, when she herself had become a miserable little thing. Then she had occasion to wonder if the Lark was still more miserable than she, smiling a little to herself at the folly of such a thought.

The creature was coming at her again. Absently, she dropped into a crouch and swept one leg in front of her in an arc, taking the thing's legs out from under it. It fell over with a thud, crushing a grave marker and sending excited roils through the thick ground-mist. She grabbed a wooden stake out from the pocket inside her new cloak (the one that Sims had insisted she have, despite her protests) and pounced to drive the killing blow, but in her distraction, the creature was a bit faster than she, and it managed to get its legs under it and run off, leaving her to pounce on nothing more than the broken bits of stone and mist that littered the ground.

Eponine got to her feet and ran after it. As she did, she concluded to herself (not for the first time) that the Lark was most likely no longer more miserable than Eponine herself, but in fact was probably very well cared for. She may not have had much interest in the girl (_Cosette_, she reminded herself, _the Lark's name was Cosette_), but she had watched when the man came to take her away. The scene had fascinated her, what with her parents making such a fuss over that little wretch, and the man, who had seemed kindly at first, growing angrier and angrier. But he had showed nothing but tenderness towards Cosette, and in the end he had paid a great deal of money to her parents for the privilege of taking the Lark with him.

Her new cloak. Now here was an interesting comparison. Had the man given the Lark a new cloak? She thought that he had. She knew he had brought her a doll, and it was only now that she remembered how that had scandalized her. The feeling had not been jealousy, precisely (of course, both Eponine and Azelma had many dolls, and most of them were prettier and nicer than the one the stranger gave Cosette), but closer to indignation. The Lark was not to have dolls. That was not the proper order of things.

She caught up to the monster by the cement wall that marked the north border of the cemetery, and with nowhere left to run, it wheeled upon her, savage yellow eyes glowing with hatred and bloodlust. It lunged for her neck, sharpened fangs ready to sink into her jugular. Eponine blocked his advance with one arm, striking the beast in the throat, knocking its head back and away. With the other arm, she brought the stake up and towards the heart, her own bloodlust rising up, pushing all other thought aside.

A short distance away, Sims watched the girl, ostensibly to document her performance, but in truth, he had mostly forgone this responsibility in favor of wool-gathering. His journal lay in his lap, open to the latest entry but forgotten as he watched his charge, anticipating both her moves and her opponent's, marveling at the ease with which she wielded the skills he had taught her. A few short weeks ago, when he had first encountered her, he would have sworn that a stiff wind might well break her in half; now she fought like a seasoned warrior, with a toughness well-concealed behind her small size and fragile appearance.

And yet, that wasn't all he saw, or felt, as he watched the girl fight for her life. He had tried to stay impartial – the mark of a true Watcher, he had been taught over and over at the academy, was not the ability to train the girl, but the ability to remain detached from her, to never come to regard her as anything but a tool with which to battle evil. But as he had trained her, the ferocity of her spirit and the unvarnished gratitude with which she regarded the calling (which, to be fair, was as much curse as it was gift) had stolen his impartiality by inches, until he was forced to acknowledge the deep respect and grudging affection which had replaced his initial skepticism and pity.

Across the graveyard, the fight was ending. Eponine plunged forward with her stake, piercing first the creature's rags and then its heart. Immediately, its struggles ceased. It threw its head back and rent the night with a sky-shattering shriek as it disintegrated. To Eponine, that shriek sounded as if it were made of equal parts pain and cheated misery. It was a sound that chilled her to her core.

And then there was nothing in the graveyard but the girl and the man and the dead who were lucky enough to still be sleeping peacefully. Eponine hurriedly put her stake back into her cloak pocket. Sims hastily gathered up his journal. For a moment, their eyes met across the ocean of grave markers that separated them, and although neither of them knew it, they were each thinking similar thoughts.

She: _…new cloak. Like the Lark. Am I the Lark now? Has someone finally come for me?_

He: _…the others were right. Best not to get attached. A tool can be replaced. A daughter cannot._

Without a word, they started forward, met at the cemetery gates, and left the dead to their rest.


	5. Montparnasse Suspicious

**Author's Note:** This chapter contains strong sexual themes (but no outright sex), including rape imagery. Readers sensitive to this material may wish to avoid this chapter.

Thanks to all who have read and reviewed so far -- you've kept me from abandoning this fic on many occassions.

Dedicated to LesMisLoony, to whom I've been promising this chapter for awhile.

**

* * *

**

**Purpose**

Chapter 5 ­­– Montparnasse Suspicious

He had been following her all day, and to his annoyance, he had grown more intrigued, rather than less, as the day wore on.

He was trailing her as a courtesy to Thenardier, although why he was doing yet _another_ favor for his own apprentice was as much a mystery to him as the girl's actions were. _Honestly, it's enough to make you question who works for whom_, he thought with a wry smile.

And yet, here he was. When Thenardier had come to him in a near-panicked state two days ago, Montparnasse had not been alarmed. Since he had become acquainted with the rotund little rouge, he had learned that panic was something of a natural state for him. Still, when he heard what the older man had to say, the young dandy had pricked his ears up at once.

"She's whorin', I know she is!" Thenardier had blustered.

"Who is?"

"Eponine! Who do you bleedin' think?"

Montparnasse had looked up from the flower he had been arranging in his lapel, carefully hiding his excited surprise behind a façade of boredom. "Why do you say that? And, more to the point, why do you care?"

"Stupid bint's been comin' and goin' all hours of the night, is how I know it," Thenardier said. "And I care because I ain't seen a bleedin' sou from her! Greedy bitch is keepin' it hidden, and I ain't even been able to beat it out of her!"

So Montparnasse had agreed to tail the little wench, although privately he thought the girl far too stupid to hide anything from anybody. Now, after nearly an entire day spent following her, he had to admit that perhaps he had been wrong about that, indeed.

Not that he thought Thenardier's assessment of the situation was correct – far from it. Women who are selling themselves only have cause to act suspiciously at night. This silly bitch had been doing peculiar things all day.

First there was the cloak. Eponine had been careful to wear her old shawl in front of her family and those who knew her, as she did not want any questions raised about how she could afford such a thing (nor did she want to fight to keep it from her father, who would have undoubtedly wanted to sell it). However, since she had not known she was being observed this morning, she had removed the cloak from its hiding place in the Gorbeau's basement and, when she felt she was a safe distance from the tenement, put it on. Montparnasse, who had a taste for fine clothes, knew that the cloak was not an expensive one, but still, it was far too nice to have been found in a dumpbin.

Frowning, he had followed her to the Rue Notre Dame, where he had observed her entering a small, shabby house. Here, Montparnasse got his second shock of the day, as the girl did not knock and wait to be allowed in; instead, she removed a key from the pocket of her cloak and let herself in. As with the cloak, the house was not all that respectable, but it was still far too respectable for the likes of Eponine Thenardier.

_Maybe she's taken a lover?_ he thought skeptically, as he approached the door and found it locked. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why anyone but he would want the little baggage (and to be honest, his desire was mostly born from the frustration that _she_ did not want _him_), but he supposed stranger things had happened. He tried the door, found it locked, and began circling the place, looking for an uncovered window through which he could peer without being seen.

He was unsuccessful in gaining a view into the house, but in the side alley, he did find a window that was partially open. The window's heavy drape kept him from seeing what was going on, but the sounds from inside the house came to him quite clearly in the still autumn air.

At first, he thought his original hypothesis, that she was with a lover, was correct. Certainly, on first hearing, the grunts and heavy breathing that reached his ear suggested vigorous sexual activity. Content that he had discovered the girl's secret, he had turned to leave – only to be rooted to the spot by a highly incongruous noise, that of clashing metal.

His curiosity was so great that, for a moment, he nearly tore down the window's covering and lunged into the house. After all, he was far from a virgin, and he had done things with women (whores, mostly) that would have made a typical bourgeoisie drop dead from outraged shock, but even he, with all his experience, could not even begin to imagine how this odd heavy noise could have anything to do with lovemaking of even the roughest sort.

He had forced himself to wait. It was long hours until the girl emerged – it was nearly two o'clock by the time she stepped back into the street. A sheen of sweat covered her face and exposed sternum, yet she did not look tired, or even more unkempt than usual. A small, hard smile played on her lips, a smile that did not fit with her usual dreamily befuddled nature. It was all Montparnasse could do not to run to her, knock her down in the street and demand an explanation at once.

Now, three hours later, Montparnasse was still no closer to discovering what in the hell she was up to. Her activities made no sense. What was he to make, for example, of the hour and a half she had spent crawling on her hands and knees in a woodlot near the Seine, gathering up small fallen branches and then storing them in her cloak? Or the way she had taken these and hidden them in the angle of a bridge, like an animal preparing to make a nest?

Now it was dark, and Montparnasse was preparing to give up this mission as a bad job. He was intrigued, yes, but intrigue did not keep him in nice clothes. It was time to devote the rest of the evening towards a more lucrative proposition than tailing this skinny-haunched wench.

He turned to go, and then reconsidered. After all, he ought to get something out of this day, shouldn't he? Since he hadn't any good information to bring back to Thenardier, he knew he would collect nothing in the way of payment from the father; why, then, not attempt to collect from the daughter instead?

He turned back towards the direction she had been going and quickly closed the space between them. When he caught her elbow, she gasped with shock and whirled so fast he nearly lost his grip. Moving rapidly, he renewed his grasp on her scant upper arm, pulled her into the alley they had been passing, and pushed her up against the rough stone wall. Holding her in place by the throat, he planted his mouth on hers and gave her a hard, pitiless kiss. She made protesting noises that could not get past her stopped mouth, and he felt the first stirring reactions in his groin as she struggled against him.

He pulled back, replacing his lips with his free hand in order to stop the scream for which she was clearly hitching in breath. He let go of her throat and began fumbling with the fastenings on his pants, enjoying the look of fright and anger he saw in her blazing, mad eyes.

"You won't push me away tonight, slut," he taunted, panting. "No, you're going to…"

He trailed off as he noticed she was no longer looking at him, but, rather, over his shoulder with a wide-eyed expression of alarm. Puzzled, he turned to see what the devil she was looking at.

When he awoke several hours later, he had no idea that time had passed. He had no recollection of having been thrown across the alley, nor of being knocked unconscious, nor of the yellow-eyed beast that had been at his back when he had turned. His last memory was of holding the bitch to the wall, preparing to have his way with her.

Groggily, he rolled over and examined the damage. One bump on the head, not too serious; one damaged dress shirt, which pained him considerably more than the head, and for which the bitch would pay dearly. Scrambling to his feet, Montparnasse looked around for her, eager to dole out punishment.

However, there was no sign of the girl. Just an empty alley, save for some broken wooden crates, one slightly-battered dandy, and one large conical pile of dust.

Black fury rose inside him, and he struck the stone wall hard enough to start his fist to bleeding. _I'll learn your secret, you miserable bitch,_ he thought, nursing his hurt hand. _I'll learn it, and then I'll beat you within in an inch of your life for keeping things from me._

This thought calmed him a little. He exited the alley and he turned towards the pub where Gueulemer would be waiting for him. On the way, he met and murdered an old man, which helped a little more. By the time he arrived at the café, the rage was gone – only the cool resolve of his mental promise to Eponine remained.


End file.
